Governor Mitt Romney and Innovation

2007 quotes

  • "This place is not just about automobiles; it is about innovation, Innovation that transformed an industry, and in doing so, gave Americans a way of life our grandparents could never have imagined.
    • Governor Mitt Romney, 02-13-07 Governor Mitt Romney's presidential announcement

  • "Innovation and transformation have been at the heart of America's success. If there ever was a time when Innovation and transformation were needed in government, it is now.
    • Governor Mitt Romney, 02-13-07 Governor Mitt Romney's presidential announcement
  • "It is time for Innovation and transformation in Washington. It is what our country needs. It is what our people deserve.
    • Governor Mitt Romney, 02-13-07 Governor Mitt Romney's presidential announcement
  • "Throughout my life, I have pursued Innovation and transformation. It has taught me the vital lessons that come only from experience, from failures and successes, from the private, public and voluntary sectors, from small and large enterprise, from leading a state, from being in the arena, not just talking about it. Talk is easy, talk is cheap. It is doing that is hard. And it is only in doing that hope and dreams come to life."
    • Governor Mitt Romney, 02-13-07 Governor Mitt Romney's presidential announcement
  • "We strengthen the American people by giving them more freedom, by letting them keep more of what they earn, by making sure our Schools are providing the skills our children will need for tomorrow, and by keeping America at the leading edge of Innovation and technology."
    • Governor Mitt Romney, 02-13-07 Governor Mitt Romney's presidential announcement
  • "Our government has become a weight on the American people, sapping their strength and slowing their climb. We must transform our government – to become a government that is smaller and less bureaucratic, one with fewer regulations and more freedom for our people. The Innovation we need today is to make government more responsive to the needs of everyday American citizens. It's time to put government in its place, and to put the American people first!"
    • Governor Mitt Romney, 02-13-07 GOVERNOR MITT ROMNEY'S PRESIDENTIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
  • "As we look around us in this museum, we see the evidence of American Innovation – airplanes, automobiles, appliances. But these are not America's greatest innovation. America's greatest Innovation is freedom. Without freedom, we have nothing. With freedom, nothing can hold us back."
    • Governor Mitt Romney, 02-13-07 Governor Mitt Romney's presidential announcement

2006 quotes

  • "Charter schools are important centers for innovation, achievement and accountability in education. It is especially important for parents with children in low-performing districts to have an alternative, and I will continue to fight any measure that would restrict this choice or the addition of new charters."

2005 quotes

  • "I want to start by commending the Committee for your decision to engage in what I consider to be the greatest challenge facing our nation – how to remain the world leader in intellectual capital. Slowly, yet systematically, the advantage the United States has in producing and retaining the thought leaders of our world has been eroded. We are, I believe, at an inflection point that will determine whether America remains a strong and viable leader in a global world economy or whether, like Great Britain before us, we will allow other countries to become the drivers of innovation while the United States slowly fades into a nation of shopkeepers."
    • Governor Mitt Romney, 05-17-2005 U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce, Hearing on "High School Reform: Examining State and Local Efforts"
  • "We have every reason to believe Massachusetts can offer a lot more good jobs. Last year, we created incentives for new jobs and funding for innovation. We stepped up to the expansion plan at Hanscom and Natick laboratories that has the potential to create thousands of new jobs. We boosted workforce training. And we hit the bricks, selling Massachusetts. We marketed our state to hundreds of employers, many of whom I met personally."
    • Governor Mitt Romney, 01-13-2005, 2005 STATE OF THE COMMONWEALTH ADDRESS

2004 quotes

  • "Charter schools provide more alternatives in public education and encourage innovation and excellence. They hold teachers and administration accountable for the educational success of their students and give parents the chance to make choices regarding their children's education."
  • "Massachusetts is a world-class center of innovation. Let's work together to keep our jobs and keep our employers here in our state where they belong."

2003 quotes

  • " So being here this evening with Dr. Vest, Mr. d'Arbeloff, the Deshpandes and other scientists and leaders in the field of innovation and technology is something which I find to be beyond my capability. I want to underscore how important what you are doing is, not just for yourselves, but to our state, to our nation, and I believe to our total global economy and global population. "
  • "Let me come back to something more parochial, which is how our state fits into all of that and how you who are entrepreneurs and investors, financiers, faculty members and others who are associated with the process of innovation fit into, if you will, "our state." I am convinced that this is an extraordinarily attractive place to grow and develop ideas and technology. That this state has many of the features which are unique in our nation and perhaps in our world - the clusters of technology and capability that have assembled here -- means that enterprises that begin here begin with a natural advantage. We have also thought to keep the attractiveness of the, if you will, 'the Petri dish" here for technology innovation very robust and vital. There are some who would suggest we could solve our problems best by, for instance, raising our tax rates and business payroll taxes and so forth. I am afraid of going down the path California is going down. I am afraid that going to an 11% income tax will scare away innovation and scare away jobs. California is a beautiful place. We don't have their weather to compete with, so we have to compete on other bases. For us it's a place where that tax burden is not overwhelming with a 5.3% tax rate - they're going up to an 11% tax rate, with over 9% today. We have to make sure this is a place as attractive for people to come and grow their enterprise - our regulatory structure."
  • Governor Mitt Romney, Deshpande Center IdeaStream Symposium, 05-13-03
  • "The numbers are clear. Small businesses are not just apart of our economy. They are the engine of economic growth and innovation."
  • "Each month, we will present this award to an individual who, like Bernie Goldhirsh, uses innovation and drive to grow small ideas into the businesses that make Massachusetts the leader we are."

  • "I know as well that what you are doing here has impact well beyond my parochial interests in Massachusetts. I think we can all appreciate the broader context of what's involved. On a global basis, I'm convinced that you are seeing - as some have indicated in some recent journals and books -- the civilizations of the world weighing the values, which will be followed by their civilizations and by their peoples. On the one hand, we have the model of the US and other nations of the west -- which is model based upon individual entrepreneurship and individual decision-making and democracy. Everything related to the individual and the innovation and creativity of the individual, and saying the individual given full freedoms and incentives and opportunities for innovation, will create enormous innovation and potential for other people to live and grow from, and that this is the best way for building a civilization and an economy. There are other civilizations in our word that are convinced, that no, that's not the right model. That in fact you are much better under a more authoritarian structure where collectivity of purpose is defined as the objective and that this idea of individuality and innovation by individuals is actually quite counterproductive. And there is a debate between these differing views in the civilizations of the world today."
    • Governor Mitt Romney
  • "There's a common misperception that we do all the innovation and send off the grunt work to people offshore, that somehow American technology does all the high-end work and we send out routine drafting elsewhere. We have the perception we're the best and the brightest but we didn't score as well as others in some studies. We know this market but when our market is no longer the target market in the world, when India and China surpass us, the idea that we'll be innovating and they'll be copying is not an accurate perception."
    • Governor Mitt Romney, Forrester Research executive strategy summit in Boston

  • "Another burden on our economic future is our out-of-control tort system. Last year, U.S. corporations spent more money on tort claims than they did on R&D. If innovation is the key to our long term leadership, then some tort lawyers are cashing out our country's future. I spoke with one member of the plaintiff's bar the other day. He said that the tort lawyers are ok with state reform, but not national reform. You know what state level tort reform means - it means that as long as there is one lawsuit-friendly state, they can sue almost any major, deep-pocketed company in America. No thanks, America needs national tort reform."
    • Governor Mitt Romney,

"Our generation has not had a Sputnik moment…yet. But our Sputnik is on its way. It is coming from Asia. One of the great developments of our time is the economic emergence of China, India, and other nations of Asia. Their poverty is thankfully being reduced. And new opportunities for our employers are opening, but so are new challenges. Asia is not content with making our Christmas tree ornaments: they want to build commercial jets and MRI machines, create software and breakthrough drugs. They are planning for the innovation and technical capital of the world to move from America to Asia."
"And it is on its way. Corporate investment in Asia is exploding. CEO's in my high tech state tell me they plan to transfer major operations there, not for the low cost, but because of the highly educated, highly motivated and plentiful workforce. Bill Gates reports that Microsoft's new ideas come increasingly from Beijing."
"We take comfort in the fact that we spend many times as much as Asian nations on R&D but don't forget that our engineers cost about ten times as much as theirs."
"Two decades ago, American citizens and Asian citizens were awarded about the same number of Ph.D.s annually in physical science and engineering—about 5,000. Today, 4,400 US citizens receive those Ph.D.s compared with 24,900 Asian citizens."
"America and America's youth are less and less competitive. Yes, fixing our schools is a social responsibility. It is also a national economic and national security necessity."
* Governor Mitt Romney, Oral Testimony of Governor Mitt Romney House Committee on Education and the Workforce
 

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